Dark Hope (12 page)

My whole body stiffened. Her jaw fell open as she stared at the back of my neck. I watched her in the mirror as she stared for a long time, cocking her head to one side, eyes narrowing, as she tried to work out this new development.

“Hope, you little devil,” she said, eyeing me with new respect as she jumped up onto the counter. “Pretending to be Miss Goody Two-Shoes when all along you have a big old tattoo on the back of your neck.” She peered closer and rubbed her thumb against my Mark, hard. “And it’s a real one, too—not even I have the guts to do that. What else do you have going on that I don’t know about?” She started pawing at me and my clothes with curiosity. “More tattoos? Piercings?”

“There’s nothing else,” I said, rushing the words out as I pushed away her hands and tried to create some distance between us. “And it’s not what you think,” I said, my face burning. “Please, believe me.”

“What is it then? I’m all ears,” she demanded, crossing her arms and laughing at my discomfort.

My mind raced, trying to find an easy way out. “It’s hard to explain.” I stuck my chin out, my body daring her to continue.

“I bet it is,” she said, arching a brow. “And not just any tattoo, either. Aramaic and Greek! That must have been some highbrow tattoo parlor you went to.”

My mind stumbled over what she’d just said. “It’s Greek?” I said, bewildered that after all this time, someone seemed to know what my Mark was.

She gave me a searching look. “
Part
of it is Greek. Symbolic ancient Greek, to be precise. See this pattern along the edges? It’s called a Greek key. They used it in ancient Greek architecture. The rest of it is letters. It’s written vertically and is a bit blurry, but I’m pretty sure it’s Aramaic. I think it spells ‘key,’” she said, coming back behind me to trace the symbols down my vertebrae. “Or maybe ‘guardian of the key’?
Natchurat kleedah
,” she pronounced carefully, her tongue thick as she attempted the ancient language. She was engrossed in studying the markings, like a scholar poring over her books. “Though why anyone would go to such lengths to label themselves a ‘key’ is beyond me.”

She studied the design intently again, and then looked up at me in the mirror. “Please tell me you didn’t just choose this because it looked pretty. And you had to have chosen it—no parlor is going to offer something like this on its normal menu.”

She cocked her eyebrow and waited for my answer.

“I didn’t choose it.”

Her other eyebrow shot up. “So someone else chose it for you? That doesn’t sound like you.”

My hands crept back up to touch the spot she’d just traced, my mind racing. “I didn’t know it meant anything. Are you sure?”

“My dad taught me some Aramaic when I was little. He had to learn ancient languages in seminary. We could show him—”

“No!” I didn’t even allow her to finish speaking before I’d ruled it out. It was bad enough that she’d seen it.

She knotted her eyebrows together, trying to puzzle me out. “Is this why you’re always wearing those turtlenecks and scarves? Why are you so touchy about it? It
is
sort of pretty, in a totally geeky kind of way.”

Don’t tell her anything
, said the little voice in my head.

I sat in silence, staring at the faded white linoleum of her bathroom. How could I explain to her that the Mark had just shown up on me? How could I tell her without having to go through the whole story of my abduction? Would she even believe me if I told her how my parents had tried again and again to get it removed, subjecting me to countless hours of pain, only to have the thing show up again, fresh and dark, only hours later?

Finally she let out a long sigh.

“Fine. I’ll keep your secret, though I have to say you’re totally overreacting.” She tossed my scarf back in my lap. I wound it around my neck as if I was binding up an open wound.

The price for Tabitha’s silence was giving her a complete free hand with my makeup. We turned up at Stone Mountain looking like two ghouls straight from the gates of Hades. She’d streaked my dark hair in hot pink and somehow managed to make it hang halfway across my face, drawing attention to my eyes, which glittered in pools of coal made by eyeliner and black shadow. A thin layer of pale foundation made me look sickly and glow in the dark.

“I look ridiculous,” I said, pointing to my North Face jacket. “Goths don’t wear fleece.”

She shrugged as she stomped ahead, dragging me in her wake. “It’s emo, not goth,” she shot back over her shoulder. “And you could have changed your clothes.”

We skirted the stream of people coming through the high wooden gates of the park and headed for the woods. Many people gave us frightened looks and steered their children away, making Tabitha chuckle. The twinkling lights inside the park disappeared as we strode into the trees.

“Where are we going?” I called after her.

“We’re cutting around to the hiking path. We’re supposed to meet near the summit.”

“The summit?” I stopped in my tracks. “What are we going to do up there? And won’t it be cold?”

She turned and stood in the darkness of the trees, shining a flashlight in my eyes so that I winced. “Are you coming or not?” The sharpness of her tone told me how frustrating she’d found me this evening. Without waiting for my answer, she turned and kept walking away from me in her tall, black boots.

“Okay,” I said meekly, walking swiftly to catch up. I had to stay on good terms with her, at least until our project was finished.

The path was clearly marked, winding around the base of the mountain through the trees. Nobody else was in sight, but just in case, Tabitha drew a finger over her lips, telling me to be quiet. We veered away from the noise of the park until all I could hear was the wind whistling through the pines. The further we walked, the darker it became as the parking lot lights faded out of sight.

We came to a clearing, the intersection of two trails. To our left, the mountain stood in a heap. Bald granite twinkled as the
beam from Tabitha’s flashlight danced across the surface. The path seemed to go straight up.

“C’mon, let’s go,” she urged, starting up the trail.

The hike seemed interminable in the dark. The naked rock was marked with a faded yellow line, but the range of the flashlight was limited, leaving us with the eerie feeling of walking into space, with no signs or landmarks along the way to let us know how far we’d gone. We scrabbled over rocks and pebbles rolling down the trail, our shoes slipping on the slick surface. Periodically, we’d enter into a small stand of windswept trees or underbrush, or we’d pass an emergency telephone posted on a pole along the trail. Other than that, there was nothing: no buildings, no animals, and no people. Every now and then I thought I heard an owl or some other sort of bird screeching, but I could never convince myself it was more than just the wind. If I took my eyes off the trail, all I could see was black. But I could only do so for an instant, at the risk of slipping and falling.

The further we got, the chattier Tabitha became, returning to her normal know-it-all self. “You know, it’s not really just granite,” she said, randomly shifting the conversation to the geology of the mountain. “It’s partly quartz monzonite. That’s why it’s so pretty.”

I huffed back at her, catching my breath after a particularly steep portion of trail. “Is there anything you don’t know about?”

“Nope,” she said, turning back to grin at me. “At least not that I’ll admit.”

“How much longer?” I complained. It seemed like we’d been climbing for an hour.

“Shhhh. I hear voices.”

We rounded a bend and looked up a few hundred yards to where a permanent shelter stood along the trail. A group of kids were already huddled around a small bonfire near the shelter. Others
straddled benches, deep in conversation. The chatter built as we climbed closer.

“Hey, Tabitha! You made it!” An older boy, his hair swept into a temporary mohawk by a shellacking of gel, spotted us and started scrambling down the hill. “Give you a hand?”

Tabitha’s face broke open in a smile. “I told you I’d come,” she said, reaching out her hand. His hand swallowed her tiny one as he hoisted her up over the last big boulder.

“Who’s your friend?”

“This is Hope,” she said, leaving me to scrabble up the rock by myself. “She’s new in town, and I thought it might be fun for her to come, too. It’s okay, right?” She twisted a piece of her hair and nibbled it nervously. She was seriously into this boy.

“Hope, I’m Tony.” Under all his makeup, he had a nice smile. “You girls thirsty?”

“After that climb, are you kidding me?” Tabitha playfully punched him in the arm. “I’m dying. What do you have?”

“You’ll see,” he said mysteriously, leading us over to the bonfire. The flickering light from the fire cast weird shadows across the faces of the assembled crowd, making their pale skin and liberal doses of black eyeshadow appear truly sinister. They were all dressed like Tabitha, some in dog collars and chains with weird sets of locks hooked onto their belts and boots that looked like they came off of storm troopers. All of them seemed much older than me or Tabitha.

“Where do you know these kids from?” I whispered to Tabitha, but she silenced me with a stare, mouthing behind Tony’s back, “Don’t embarrass me!”

“Hey, guys, let’s get these girls something to drink. What d’ya say?”

They began jostling each other, trying to get into some big
coolers, and I realized that almost everyone here was a boy. Someone pressed a plastic tumbler into my hands. I took a cautious sip and nearly choked on the bitter taste of liquor. I spat it out behind my back, being careful that nobody could see. For a split second, I thought I heard familiar harsh laughter—Lucas. I whirled around to confront him, but there was no one there.

Tabitha was holding her tumbler, laughing and flirting with Tony. As soon as I could interrupt, I pulled her away.

“Tabitha, where are all the other girls?” I whispered, a note of anxiety creeping into my voice.

“I’m sure they are around here somewhere,” she said, her voice trailing off as she looked around and came to the same realization.

“Tabitha,” I said urgently, trying to pull her away from the fire, “how well do you know these people?”

“I know Tony well enough!” she snapped, pulling her arm away from me. “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

“But they gave us alcohol—”

“So don’t drink it!” she spat, exasperated, through her clenched jaw. Over her shoulder she saw Tony watching us intently. She dragged me a little ways further, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Listen, if you don’t want to stay here, go hike up the rest of the way,” she said, her head inclining back to the trail. “I’ll be here when you realize how silly you’re being.”

I didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone here, and told her so.

She gave my hand a firm squeeze. “Tony’s dad and my dad go way back. He won’t let anything happen to me. And it will take you twenty, thirty minutes tops to hike up and back. You can go up and see the famous view of Atlanta. I’ll be here when you get back. I promise, we can go then.”

I looked at her doubtfully, prompting her to cross her hands over her heart in an exaggerated X.

“Scout’s honor,” she declared, leaving her hands to rest on her hips.

I looked down at the tops of my sneakers. “You think I’m being ridiculous, don’t you?”

“I think it’s sweet that you are so careful,” she said firmly. “Not just with yourself, but with me, too.” I lifted my eyes to hers, and saw that she was telling me the truth. “You are a bit sheltered, Hope. Not everything or everyone is what they look like on the outside. God knows I’m living proof of that. But trust me—I don’t mind having a friend who is willing to speak up to look out for me.” Her eyes were fierce with pride and I felt a surge of pleasure as I realized she already considered me a friend. “It may be misplaced this time, but it’s something I value. Now, go. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

I shuffled over to the last leg of the trail, grasping the metal railing.
Was I being too cautious?
I asked myself.
It doesn’t matter
, I realized.
Whether you are right or not, she doesn’t want you to spoil her fun
. Out of respect for my new friend, then, I’d have to give her some space. I reached for the flashlight and then my heart sank. My pocket was empty; Tabitha had been the last one to carry it. I looked back to where she stood, hoping to catch her eye, but she was engrossed, flirting and laughing with Tony.

Oh, well
, I thought.
Off I go
.

The climb was a lot steeper than the earlier parts of the trail, but even so, it took me only about fifteen minutes to make it to the top. As I crested the mountain, the bitter wind whipped around me and I hugged my sides, willing my fleece to keep me warm.

Careful now
, my inner voice cautioned me as I stepped forward onto the bare rock.

The top of the mountain was dark, but it didn’t matter. The entire crazy quilt of lights that comprised the Atlanta skyline at night spread out before me, twinkling and sparkling as if against a
backdrop of black velvet, giving the entire surface of the mountain a shimmery glow.